thanosv-at-gmail.com · https://github.com/thanos
Distinguished Engineer / MD — Head of AI for bank operations (production AI, reconciliations, cash, controls)
I am Distinguished Engineer and Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets, Head of AI and Architecture for Finance IT. I build and run engineering organizations that put AI into regulated operational systems — reconciliations, cash management, supervision, trade limits — and I want to lead that work for Citi COO Technology.
I came to Computer Science by accident. At eighteen, I had no interest in computers; my heart was set on being a hydrologist to solve water problems in developing countries. My technical interests were analog — trading and repairing vintage valve amplifiers. That changed during a summer job at the Electric Coin Company, a slot machine vendor. I expected to wield a soldering iron but found myself coding 6801 controllers. By the end of the summer, I was addicted to programming. I switched tracks, graduating from North London Polytechnic with a degree in Maths & Computer Science.
My early career was defined by eclectic, high-intensity technical challenges. I worked with Richard Forsyth on Darwin, one of the earliest Machine Learning frameworks, which we used to unsuccessfully predict horse races. I worked in Atari’s PC games division, built RIP engines for printers, and developed a real-time OS for Ferranti’s Lynx helicopter program. My freelance work spanned industries: fuzzy logic control systems for Unilever, video routing for the BBC, and neural networks on Transputers for the UK Treasury.
At PyCon 2003 - photo by Guido van Rossum
In 1993, while working at Apple on the Newton program, I discovered the internet and built a WAIS-based patient record system for the UK National Health Service. A pivotal moment came in 1995 when I was commissioned to build the first internet casino for Caesars. My initial C++ codebase was tight but unwieldy at over 40,000 lines, and I struggled to complete it. On a whim, I bought Mark Lutz’s Python book and rewrote the entire system over a weekend. The result was a superior, 4,000-line solution. That project made me a lifelong Python evangelist and led to the creation of an early cyber currency, WebCheck.
After stints in Europe — advising the European Parliament, building Erlang systems for Ericsson, and being poached by IBM Research in Zurich to code a mobile JVM — I returned to my hometown, New York, in 1997. I architected the NYSE’s first internet-based system, which was likely the first financial production system written in Python. Since then, my focus has been on high-frequency trading, fixed income platforms, and risk systems for major institutions like ICAP, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and RBC Capital Markets. Between these corporate mandates, I continue to explore the bleeding edge through running a startup style group within the bank.
| Domain | Companies |
|---|---|
| Trading & Risk | Infinigon Group, RBC CM |
| Blockchain & Crypto | RBC CM, Infinigon Group, Solana, Marita Bank, Caesars Casino, Electric Coin Co. |
| Machine Learning & Big Data | RBC CM, Infinigon Group, Caesars Casino, Ericsson |
| Mobile Development | Apple, RBC CM, IBM, ICAP, Ericsson, Zingy |
| Gaming & Robotics | Atari, Zingy, Caesars Casino, Unilever |
| High Performance Computing | JP Morgan, NYSE, SIAC, HP |
| Telecommunications | British Telecom, Ericsson, HP, Honeywell Bull, Multitone, Reuters |
| Cloud & Distributed Systems | RBC CM, Infinigon Group, Ericsson |
| Medical & Public Sector | British National Health, European Parliament, European Community, AAH Meditel |
| Military | Ferranti |
RBC CM, Infinigon Group, RBC CM, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Zingy, ICAP, SIAC/NYSE, Ericsson/HP, West LB, European Community, Caesars Casino, European Parliament, AAH Medical, Apple, Symantec (Zortech), Reuters International, Honeywell Bull, Drake, British Telecom, Ferranti, Barclays, Multitone, Atari, Unilever, Atari, Electric Coin Company.
ADA, C, C++, COBOL, Cuda, Elixir, Erlang, Fortran, Go, Java, JavaScript, Modula-2, Pascal, Python, Rust, Solidity, Zig